


Heat/Comfort

by RosalindInPants



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fingering, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:15:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28733328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/pseuds/RosalindInPants
Summary: A dumping ground for bits of alpha/beta/omega smut that don't fit anywhere else.Chapter 1: Modern AU, Wolfe goes into heat in the hospital after being rescued.
Relationships: Niccolo Santi/Christopher Wolfe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Heat/Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in the same AU as "To Learn and to Heal", taking place right after Wolfe's rescue, as described here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27651470/chapters/70261131
> 
> Three days of recovery shouldn't be nearly enough for Wolfe to go into heat, but he does, and it's up to Santi to take care of him. Carefully.

Three days in the hospital was enough for Santi to begin to find a routine in it. Mealtimes, visits from doctors and nurses and therapists, doses of medications and changing of bandages, all on a schedule close enough to regular that Santi's internal clock could set itself by it. Between it all, sleep.

Chris slept a lot. Weak from starvation and abuse, he needed the rest, and the painkillers made him drowsy besides. To say nothing of his mental state. Santi suspected that sometimes consciousness was too much for Chris to bear. As much as he could, he slept when Chris did. When he couldn’t sleep, he sat by the bed and watched the rise and fall of his mate’s chest or lay squeezed into the bed beside him, scrolling through the flood of messages and updates on his phone without comprehending any of it. 

Leaving Christopher’s side was unthinkable. Chris woke from many of those naps screaming or crying, thrashing around in his distress. He needed Santi to hold him then. Soothe him back into sleep or gently guide him into consciousness. 

Other times, though, Chris woke purring. That was what woke Santi sometime not nearly long enough after collapsing into exhausted sleep in the hospital bed together after the nightly ordeal of wound care. The wonderful feeling of Chris nuzzling his chest, and a rush of gratitude powerful enough to bring tears to his eyes. Chris was alive. Chris was with him. That was enough to wash away any resentment he might otherwise have felt at being woken up in the dead of night.

It _was_ night still. Santi could tell by the dark sky out the window, though the lights in the room were on, dimmed to a twilight brightness somewhat darker than their daytime setting. Chris tolerated neither darkness nor bright light well.

“Yes, it’s good to see you, too,” Santi said, blinking away sleep and shifting a half numb arm out from under his partner’s body. The hospital bed was far too narrow for two to sleep comfortably. Out of habit, his other hand went for Chris’s hair, kindling a now-familiar burn of heartache when his fingers found only stubble and skin.

It was such a small, stupid thing to hurt so much over, considering everything else that had been done to Chris. But God, it was so strange to see him bald. He didn’t look like himself. And he’d always loved his hair.

Preoccupied by moping over hair, Santi noticed the heat of his partner’s scalp only belatedly. The heat of Chris’s body, too, when he paid attention to it. Rolling onto his back, he pulled Chris on top of him and snaked a hand up Chris’s loose pajama shirt while Chris mouthed at his neck.

Definitely hot. Santi was on a high enough dose of blockers that his sense of smell was shit, but he thought his partner’s sandalwood scent might be heavier than before. A quick pat on the ass confirmed it.

Chris’s pajama pants were soaked. And Chris let out a pleased chirp and lifted his hips to press into the touch.

Definitely in heat. Fuck.

Normally, that wouldn't be a problem. It used to happen all the time when Chris went to conferences. A few days away, and one sniff of Santi's pheromones would send Chris right into heat. It used to be fun. A lot of fun, none of which Chris was in any condition for.

Had the doctor said anything about heat? Santi rubbed Chris’s bottom while he searched his mind for that particular detail in the overwhelming heap of medical information he’d been given over the past few days. Chris purred louder and wiggled his hips, grinding his growing erection into Santi’s stomach.

Fuck, it was good to see Chris like this. Alert and affectionate and so responsive to every touch. Not so different than any other heat. Except for the quiet. Chris wasn’t exactly talkative in heat, having better things to do with his mouth, but he was never silent like this. Even his purrs were muted, when Santi listened closely. So soft, as if he feared being heard.

Which, of course, he did. A rush of hormones, no matter how intoxicating, couldn’t take away more than a year in that dark hell of a basement. Couldn’t take away the injuries, either. Or the starvation. Santi thought the doctor might have said something about heat cycles returning as Chris regained weight, but it had sounded like something weeks away. This was too soon.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Santi fumbled for his phone, still on the charger on the bedside table. The display showed 2:13 am. Time to see if the nurses really did mean it about being able to text them any time.

Chris made a disgruntled noise and grasped at Santi’s arm with a shaking hand. _Oh, put that away, Nic,_ Santi could almost hear him saying. A memory to fill the aching silence where his voice should have been.

“I know, I know,” Santi said while he entered the number from the whiteboard on the wall. Not easy with Chris squirming on top of him. It was almost enough to make him wish he’d installed the hospital’s app with its convenient _contact nurse_ button, but Chris would have hated that. Chris had very strong opinions on apps, and Santi doubted this one would live up to his standards. “I’m just going to text the nurse. Let them know you’re in heat. Ask what it’s safe to do.”

He could hear Christopher’s biting reply. _I do not need a nurse’s input on how to manage my own heat, Niccolo._ But it didn’t come. Not even a grumble or a glare. Just a shaky sigh as he went limp against Santi’s chest and a look in his eyes Santi couldn’t interpret. Resignment, maybe, or relief. He didn’t really want to think about where those feelings would have come from, but he couldn’t stop himself. 

Unbidden, unwelcome, shaky footage flashed before his eyes, and he saw Chris, from the perspective of Art or Tom, whichever of them had been holding the camera. The phone. Shit. Another thing to add to the list of triggers, maybe. Or...

Very softly, he asked, "Chris, love, do you know where you are?"

"Nic," came the mumbled answer. The eyes that blinked up at him seemed clear enough, no hazier than he would expect of an omega in heat.

"Yes. It's me. It's Nic, and you are here with me in the hospital. Safe." He watched for some sign of disagreement or confusion on his partner's face, but there was none of that. Only that needy, imploring look that emphasized the urgency of the situation.

Somehow, though his hands shook and it was hard to see the phone screen around Chris, Santi managed to type out a reasonably coherent message and send it. He showed it to Chris, too, in case it helped, but Chris only turned his head away to nuzzle Santi’s neck with a hopeful whine.

“Soon, love, soon. I’ll take care of you. I promise.” As soon as he said it, the words seemed inadequate. A promise. What good was that when Chris was hurting now?

(When Chris had been hurting for over a year?)

Reluctant as he was to let the phone go, Santi set it down on the table, face up so he would be able to see when the response came. “How about we get you a drink while we wait? You must be thirsty.”

Very thirsty, to judge by the sweat dampening his feverish skin. Or maybe not, with the steady drip of the IV. Regardless, it was something to do, and Chris gave a soft hum that could have been agreement.

With some effort, several attempts at working the bed controls, and a fair amount of tangling of limbs and IV tubing, Santi got the two of them sitting up. His own back rested against the raised bed, and Chris sat in his lap, faced toward the table, the arm with the IV in it resting across Santi's shoulders. Comfortable, or at least something close to it. 

Chris seemed satisfied, or at least glad to be done with being moved. He took the cup of water when Santi offered it, though his hand shook too much to hold it on his own. To be fair, it was more a giant mug than a cup, the kind Chris would have liked to have for his coffee before everything went so horribly wrong. He wasn’t allowed coffee anymore. Too hard on his system. Bad interactions with his medicine. Something like that.

A year without coffee. Another little hurt that stung between the gaps of the armor of numbness that shielded him from the bigger ones. 

While Chris was drinking, the reply came. Santi’s phone had been on silent since Zara oh-so-helpfully decided to blow it up with detailed crime scene reports and updates on the case, so it didn’t ring or buzz or chime, but he saw when it lit up. All the privacy settings Chris had put on for him kept the text from showing on the lock screen, and the sight of the blank “new message” icon made anticipation fill him, heavy as stones and cold as ice. 

Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to see the message after all. They might tell him it wasn’t safe to help Chris. Make him sit and do nothing while Chris cried for relief, like when they cleaned Chris’s burns. Or watch, helpless, as his mate’s eyes fell shut in medicated sleep, knowing how terrified and confused Chris would be when he woke. Or they might tell him this heat was a bad sign. It could be… No. He wasn’t going to let his imagination run wild. He was committed already. He pressed his finger to the pad to unlock the phone and tapped the message icon before his nerves could get to him.

_Checked with doctor on call. It’s normal. No stopping it. Blockers still no go. Doc recommends the natural way. He isn’t cleared for vigorous activity, so be gentle. Use your hands. Putting a do not disturb sign on the door for you._

That was… not as bad as he’d feared. Direct in a way that made his toes curl in a kind of embarrassment he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager, but not bad. He could help. At that thought, he almost laughed in strange, giddy relief. _He_ could help. For once in the whole time they’d been in this damned hospital, _he_ was the one who could make Chris feel better.

And wasn’t that a mature reaction to all of this.

Santi tapped out a quick “thx” in response, something Chris definitely would have mocked him for, but Chris said nothing, blinking down at the phone as if the text on the screen held no meaning at all. Maybe he couldn’t read it. He didn’t have his glasses, and he was probably going to need a new prescription now, anyway.

“It says-” Santi began, but Chris pushed the phone away with a grunt of frustration. 

Right. Enough waiting. Santi dropped the phone back on the table, only to realize that he really had no idea what to do. The end result was clear enough, but getting there seemed no easier than finding his way home after being dropped in an unfamiliar neighborhood. At home, if Chris didn’t beat him to it, he would have arranged a nest and planned a seduction to surprise and delight Chris. There would have been refreshments to prepare, toys to choose from, the perennial debate of who would take the lead, or whether that decision was to be made in advance at all. It could, after all, be a lot of fun to wrestle for dominance.

None of that now, for sure. No chases, no wrestling, and certainly nothing kinky. He couldn’t see how they would ever do those things again. More small losses, more tiny pinpricks to bleed his heart dry.

Little pains to distract from the heart-rending sound of Chris whimpering as he squirmed in Santi’s lap, shaking hands clinging to Santi’s shoulders for stability as he tried in vain to push himself onto an erection that wasn’t there. Couldn’t be there, on a dose of blockers as high as Santi was taking. Rancid distress fouled his scent.

“Shh, love, it’s all right,” Santi murmured, gathering his mate into an embrace and rocking him slowly. “I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m going to make you feel better. I just need you to relax for me. Can you do that?”

Chris pressed his face into Santi’s neck and took a deep, ragged breath. Nuzzling, he found the raised scar of their mating bite and gave it a tentative lick. At that, his whole body shuddered with a sob. “Nic.” Hardly louder than a whisper, but it echoed in Santi’s ears.

“I’m here, love,” Santi repeated. Fingers spread wide, he rubbed Chris’s head and neck in pale imitation of the way he would have stroked his partner’s hair, something Chris had always found soothing. He let his fingers linger on the mating scar on Chris’s neck, tracing the marks his teeth had left years ago.

The memory rose like a warm plume of steam in his mind. Chris sitting on the bed, the bright red of the fresh bite mark beautiful on his brown skin. “Such ridiculous things I do for you, my love.” His voice was scornful, but there was such affection in his dark eyes as he lifted his hand to his mouth and licked it, cat-like, before pressing his fingers to the bite. Starting the invisible reaction between his saliva and Santi’s that would raise the scar.

Another memory, this one a shard of jagged glass. Chris lying on the floor of that dark closet, a dazed look on his too-thin face, one hand pressed to his neck. To the bite mark there. The same way Santi had found himself touching his own matching bite mark over and over during those long months of separation.

It felt so good to have Christopher’s mouth on his neck now, and to feel the ridges of scar tissue beneath his fingers. To touch and be touched, claim and be claimed.

With a needy moan, Chris stretched out his neck, tipping his head back to offer the whole of his throat. His eyes met Santi's, trusting, pleading, the pupils so wide hardly any brown showed around the edges. Beautiful. Irresistible. 

_Take me. I am yours,_ that look said, and something primal stirred within Santi in answer. Not lust, but a deep-seated need to possess. _Yes. Mine._

"My Christopher," he whispered, reverent, and placed a soft kiss on the exposed hollow of his partner's throat. An answer to the trust Chris offered. _I will never hurt you. You are safe._

He drew a line of kisses from there to Christopher's mating bite, feeling the flutter of his partner's breath beneath his lips and savoring the whimpers that accompanied each brush of his lips. Heat made Chris so sensitive, so responsive.

At the barest touch of tongue to scar, Chris groaned, "Nic." Teeth clenched, he pushed himself up, limbs rigid and trembling with the effort, though his bottom hardly left Santi’s lap. Just enough for his hips to tilt in presentation.

It lasted only a second, not even long enough for Santi to line his teeth up with the mark on his partner’s neck, and then Chris’s strength gave out. With a pitiful cry, he collapsed against Santi’s chest, all bones and shivers and helpless tears.

Santi gathered him close, rocked him, trailed a hand down over the sharp ridges of his ribs and lumps of bandages and into the loose waistband of his pajamas. Chris had always been on the small side, but never like this. Never these knife-sharp hip bones draped in nothing but feverish skin. Hard to believe he even had enough weight on him to be in heat at all, but there was no doubt he was. Slick soaked his pajamas, coating Santi’s hand long before his fingers found their target.

This heat couldn’t have started long ago. Only hours had passed since Chris last had his temperature checked, but already he was open and ready. Santi’s first finger slipped straight into soft and welcoming warmth. He probably could have gotten a whole hand in without difficulty, and the moan that Chris let out suggested that it would have been welcome.

_“Nic.”_

Thank God for blockers. The sound of his name, spoken with such desperate need, made it difficult enough to resist the urge to give in to Christopher’s every desire. Santi couldn’t imagine trying to manage this through the fog of rut.

“I know, love. You want to be full, don’t you?” Santi asked, nuzzling the top of his partner’s head where it rested against his shoulder. Overgrown beard on shaved scalp, such a strange sensation. The prickles of new-growing hair poked through the barrier of his beard to scrape his face as Chris nodded, making a vaguely affirmative sound. 

One more finger. It couldn’t hurt to use one more finger. In as easily as the first. Whimpers at that, and rocking hips. Better, but not satisfied. Pushing in deep, he found the bulge of the prostate, larger than he remembered. Swollen from heat? Or from neglect? It didn’t matter, not now. He curled his fingers against it.

This time, the sound Chris made was one of pure pleasure, accompanied by a full-body shiver and a flood of pleased omega scent strong enough that no dose of blockers could have stopped the instinctive rush of pride that surged through Santi in response. He might not be getting hard, but that didn’t stop him from purring, rubbing his cheek against Christopher to raise his own scent as he said, “Yes, you need this, don’t you? I can’t fill you more right now, but I’ll take care of you. I’ll give you what you need.”

And oh, how Chris needed it. A few gentle circles of Santi’s fingers had him coming apart in Santi’s arms, his head thrown back against Santi’s shoulder as he panted and shivered, wide and watery eyes fixed on Santi’s face. Watching him. Searching. There was a question in those eyes, past the shimmer of tears and the shadow of arousal. The same question he had been asking since Santi carried him out of that basement prison. In words, when he could grasp them, in fumbling letters on a tablet screen, and in these looks of heartbreaking hope.

_“Is this real?”_

Santi badly wanted to kill the alphas who had hurt him enough to make him doubt even this. How dare they leave their filthy marks on his omega, not only on Christopher’s body, but on his mind as well? Chris was his omega. _His._ His to hold and protect and love and claim. That was what Chris needed. To be claimed, not just to satisfy Santi’s selfish alpha urges, but to prove to him that his alpha’s protection was real.

Meeting the apprehension in Christopher’s gaze with his own certainty, Santi kissed his omega, claiming his mouth as gently and relentlessly as his fingers claimed Chris from beneath. Santi found his lover’s mouth as soft and pliant as his hole, open and eager and greedy for everything that he gave. Though he could not possibly have made up for a lost year in a single kiss, Santi gave all that he could, until he felt Chris going tense, quick and shallow breaths puffing against his lips.

Close now. So close Santi could all but taste the climax on his omega’s tongue, but not yet there. Chris needed more. Something to make him feel safe and push him over the edge.

Chris whimpered when Santi pulled back from the kiss, a pitiful sound that turned to a passionate moan when Santi’s teeth found their place on his neck. Right over the mating scar, where the skin was tough enough to take the pressure of a good, firm bite. Not enough to break skin - he wouldn’t risk that - but enough to bruise. Enough to prove that Chris was his, and Chris was safe. Enough, along with the fingers massaging his prostate, to bring Chris to orgasm.

Santi didn’t think he’d ever heard anything as satisfying as his partner’s cry of relief, at least until Chris dragged in a breath and sighed, “Nic,” in a voice of pure satisfaction. Chris went slack in Santi’s arms, every muscle loose except for the tight ring of his hole, clenching around Santi’s fingers. Trying to hold a knot Santi couldn’t give him. The best Santi could do was curl and spread his fingers to offer a bit more to hold onto, but that must have been good enough. Chris smiled, and his eyes fluttered shut, but not before Santi saw the adoration in them. Not so much as a hint of fear now. Purring, Chris burrowed into Santi’s neck, lazily mouthing at the mating bite there. Protected and cared for, the way he should be.

The tie didn’t last long. Weak and exhausted as he was, Chris fell asleep within minutes, allowing Santi to extract his soaked and cramping hand. His hand wasn’t the only thing soaked. Slick and ejaculate had saturated Chris’s pants and left a wet spot in Santi’s lap. He needed to clean up. He should probably text the nurse. But Chris was content and purring in his sleep, looking more peaceful than he had in more than a year, and Santi didn’t have it in him to risk disturbing him. Santi pulled up the blankets, folded his omega into his arms, and slept.


End file.
